


You Have One New Message

by JackalopingIntoTheVoid



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Catharsis, Closure, Gen, Ripper AU, a bad father, and the damage he did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 05:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18564760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackalopingIntoTheVoid/pseuds/JackalopingIntoTheVoid
Summary: Edmund Thomas Giles was a busy man. As such it was far from unusual when, upon returning to the Giles family estate that evening, Edmund found he had a voice message from a missed call on the home telephone.





	You Have One New Message

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Eclectic_Bookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/gifts).
  * Inspired by [father and son](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16101401) by [The_Eclectic_Bookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm). 



> For celia, inspired by a reread of her series [lucky you're the one i love](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1076166), set in my dumb au which has very much become our ripper au. Thank you, thank you, endlessly thank you. (not that you’ve done anything specific recently to prompt this celia, i just love you a lot)

Edmund Thomas Giles was a busy man. Even with the Slayer situation unprecedentedly stable– and so it seemed it would remain for some time, a first in Council history– there was much to be done. Meetings, outreach, reading field reports, monitoring supernatural activity worldwide and sending people in where necessary, keeping an eye on any Potentials (nothing was certain in this line of work), ensuring the Watcher’s Academy was still producing young blood to fill out the Council as its more esteemed members reached the end of their careers.

As such it was far from unusual when, upon returning to the Giles family estate that evening, Edmund found he had a voice message from a missed call on the home telephone.

Though he was tempted to let it wait until the morning, he knew that would be remiss. It could be about bills, or something equally pressing yet mundane. He took two paracetamol tablets and made himself a scotch on the rocks, then played the message.

A shaky breath sounded through the slightly fuzzy speaker, and then– to Edmund’s shock– his son’s voice filled the room.

_“… Had another one. A baby.”_

A pause– another breath. Rupert still spoke with the rough London accent he’d picked up in his hooligan years, even though he’d lived in California for longer now. Edmund took a swig of his scotch, then decided it would be best to set it down.

_“A son. My son.”_

A grandson. At last. He wondered how Rupert was faring. Not well, if he was breaching his self-imposed estrangement while mildly slurring.

_“I was… so scared. For months, I was so scared that… that I…”_

Yes, Edmund thought, that sounded about right. Sons were daunting things. His own father, Thomas Giles, had been a baker while his wife– Edna– was a Watcher. She’d raised Edmund, fed him, bathed him, clothed him, taught him. She’d led him into the Watcher’s Council and he’d proudly followed in her footsteps. Even now, well into her dotage, her esteem meant the world.

(He didn’t understand why she favoured Rupert so.)

Thomas had been work-oriented and distant, and when Edmund had been faced with his own son… well, he could see why his father had been that way. But his father had passed before Rupert had arrived, so there could be no sharing in that understanding.

Had… would Rupert… ?

_“I was scared that– that I would look at him, at my son, and feel nothing. I was scared that I was like you, and I wouldn’t love him.”_

Edmund felt an acute weight settle in his stomach, and picked up his scotch again. (He never knew how to respond to Rupert crying.)

_“But he’s– he’s been born now, and he’s beautiful and he’s… he’s got my eyes. Jenny’s everything else, but my eyes. Your…”_

Rupert’s breath hitched, and Edmund needed more scotch.

_“He’s beautiful. He’s tiny, and fragile, and precious and it’s bollocks! Moulding, shaping, it’s all bollocks!”_  Rupert sobbed.  _“My son…”_

Standing up, Edmund walked to the drinks cabinet and took the scotch out again. He didn’t usually have more than one to see him into bed, but this was… he didn’t analyse it too closely. Rupert was a troublesome boy, even now. Sometimes a drink was needed.

_“He’s a baby, for fuck’s sake! He’s a baby and he needs to be looked after, kept safe. And I will, by God I will. Never– never in his life, I **swear** , he will NEVER have to think his dad doesn’t love him!”_

Rupert sobbed on the line for a few seconds, made an abortive attempt to say something else, then hung up. Edmund sipped his scotch, still standing by the cabinet, but the burn faded and left him feeling cold.

_“You have no new messages.”_


End file.
